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Shadow-Speak: From the Abyss

Updated: Jun 10, 2025

Finally Found

Escaping. Out toward the woods. Its floor, alive in the mist. Being free from that place is unconscionably priceless. I can’t remember the last time I felt dew on my feet. It felt like breathing through my toes was possible. It felt like the air was alive and reverberating. It felt like the moon could see me and only me. I was fed by its light and it gave me strength as I inched along the quiet path. I could not believe I was in the clear. It felt like it could be taken from me at any moment.


Along with my breathing. As though my next breathe could stole from me. I couldn’t breathe very well. So, I breathed slowly, carefully as though it was my most precious power and that I would never take it for granted again. My breath, my heartbeat, each step I took that was furthest away from where I came.

The moss carried me like a cloud. I glided through the moonlight, drawing me nearer to its silvery vibration. Meticulously I stepped, sensing the black, vacuous hole reaching for me as though I was an extension of it. As though, I was an aspect of this dark and unlawfully trying to separate myself. But I had full rights to leave. I was never meant to be in the dark long anyway.

I strived for this moment. I fought and endured for each step away. I longed, yearned, and survived. I bled my fingertips, scratching at the emptiness, relying only on faith that light would be awaiting me. Fighting off the doubtful intrusions, the dense, defeating thought that I am a fool to believe I’d ever be free. The heavy voices convincing me that there is no necessity for believing. Don’t believe it’s possible. Don’t believe you can get out or that there was an out.

“There is no out Amy. You are delusional. You lie to yourself. You will never be free. You suck. You’re a loser.

NO one wants you. NO one hears you. No one will come to help. No way you get what you want. You are evil. You are insane. You are bitch and a bastard. You will never be arranged in such a way that lets you leave.”  

This consumed us* standing with the dark swirling around and through us, until we saw the light piercing, stretching, outreaching despite thronged trees. We look up. We see the trees now only because of the moon. The glow shows us another world. This glimpse is all we needed to move forward. So, we take in the scene. The light is the most beautiful source of potential of life. We feel life now. It’s all we needed. We breathed separate from the dark for the first time.

It’s happening we are escaping…



*Changed the voice/1st person perspective, as the reader and I are not separate. Also, life returning makes one aware of their internal complexity. Many-selves reuniting with once-thought disappeared aspects of the self.


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